"You HAVE to do this..."

So I dont know how many of you I've told... ok let me back up a little more then that. So super senior year of college I was just LOVING art. I just enjoyed it SO much... thinking about it, experimenting with it, making it... especially with others. So when I graduated and it looked like I'd be substitute teaching for a while it looked like I wouldnt need to be making art at all. And not only because I LOVED art but also because I was required for almost 2 straight years to be creative almost 24/7, I knew this was going to be a difficult change. But God has graced me with a few big ideas for big projects that don't have to be completed anytime soon but that I can work on whenever I have the chance :) (Hes also given me various other little ones to work on as well... thank you God!) Ok... anyway one of them is a graphic novel based on the story of the Apostle Paul but in modern times... weird I know. SO to make a short story long... Im trying to come up with an idea of how the characters in this story will look, more realistic/less realistic, basically what will be the feel to all the characters. So periodically I sketch out the heads of my idears of Paul, Stephen and Peter. So I was doing that today while resting and the head of the first one I was drawing was coming out more realistc. Thats alright and also he wasnt looking very Jewish... (I want Peter and Paul to look VERY noticably Jewish) so I decided to make this one Stephen. And I want Stephen to be blonde at this point (dont really know why). Also for the look I was going for I was thinking of Jon Foreman when I was thinking of his hair. (Probably because I cant stop watching the Switchfoot podcast from the last blog entry :) So when I was done I realised.... I drew Jon Foreman.... not Stephen. It looked very much like him. So... I had 3 circles on the page... I decided I was going to draw 3 of my favorite singers right now: Josh Garrels, John Mark McMillan and as I said above Jon Foreman. So I got ALL EXCITED. Then I thought, "ILL DO THREE PAINTINGS OF THEM!!!" and was even more excited (you can tell by the "all caps") But then I slowed down, I've been trying to keep my mind off of myself these days. God has been showing that pretty much the root to every problem I have is my WICKED selfishness... and its showing itself to be more and more true. So I thought, this is a pretty selfish painting. I stoped. Later this evening I picked up the drawing and thought I would at least finish the graphite portraits. I was looking through a bunch of pictures online as refrence for the guys. When I came to John Mark, I found this recently added video to his blog,



Then I heard...